The inventory advisor

Apr 26, 2016

Inventory spreadsheets come with a cost

If you deal with inventory forecasting, planning, or purchasing, you probably deal with Excel. It has become standard practice for inventory planners to run part or all of their replenishment process using a ‘MASTER’ spreadsheet. Using Excel this way is a cheap and readily available method, but have you stopped to consider what unknown costs are hiding in this process?

Over at The Inventory Mentor blog, you can learn about the issues you might be missing when you rely on Excel to handle your complicated inventory-related tasks. It’s definitely worth a read.

One important point mentioned in the post that often gets overlooked is that these inventory spreadsheets tend to be managed by a single person. What happens if that person is sick or takes a different job? Is there really anyone else on the team that understands the finer points of the spreadsheet?

A series on using spreadsheets to plan inventory

The Inventory Mentor announced this topic as a series of posts that they’ll be posting throughout this month. It promises to be a helpful look into the problem areas that spreadsheets simply can’t handle, no matter how much of an Excel wiz you might be. We’ll follow along with them as they look into the challenges of data, synchronization, productivity, and more, so be sure to check back soon for a deeper dive into this critical issue.

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